


One Year in Night Vale

by Selenae



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode Related, Homophobia, M/M, canon violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:19:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenae/pseuds/Selenae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why it took Carlos so long to ask Cecil out. Includes Carlos's point of view of the events of "One Year Later."</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Year in Night Vale

Carlos had never been in a truly “out” relationship.

He had come out to his immediate family and closest friends many years ago, but he’d never felt comfortable revealing his orientation to mere acquaintances. Where he’d lived it wasn’t safe to be publically identified as gay. So he had never conducted a relationship out in the open the way his heterosexual friends did. There’d been a few men he called “boyfriend”s, relationships hidden within the privacy of an apartment. The longest had lasted two years, and they had never been alone together in public.

Carlos was intellectually aware that the national opinion was shifting, that young people were “cool with” homosexuality and in many places a gay couple was considered totally normal. But he couldn’t make himself believe that that applied to himself.

Then he arrived in Night Vale and a deep voice on the radio fell declared its love for Carlos’ hair.

Carlos panicked. He’d been in town only one day and somehow he’d been outed! Well, technically Cecil had only outed himself, but surely his crush would cast suspicion on Carlos, who would have to either deny or confess his own orientation. To come out to an entire town of strangers was too terrifying to contemplate. To lie to them was shameful. 

Carlos cut off his hair.

How dare Cecil force him into this corner? Who the hell was this Cecil, with his casual openness and his naïveté and his steady, soothing voice and his genuine care for the people of Night Vale, and… 

And maybe Carlos was developing a bit of a crush himself. 

Time passed. No one asked Carlos about his sexual orientation. No one in Night Vale seemed to care that a man was gushing about another man on the public airwaves. People were clearly listening to the radio show; neighbors mentioned to Carlos some of the science that Cecil reported on. The scientists who had arrived with him were amused by Carlos’ minor celebrity status, but mostly occupied by their investigations into the paranormal horrors of Night Vale. He tried to throw himself into work as well.

There was something very wrong with Night Vale. People died from eating bread. Glowing clouds dropped dead animals. Librarians trapped readers in the library and killed them, but that didn’t matter because books didn’t work. Time didn’t seem to be working right either. And if his first impulse on discovering something weird was always to call Cecil, well, that was the fastest way to get news out to the people who needed to hear it. When Cecil interpreted one of these calls as a request for a date, Carlos made it emphatically clear that he was only interested in science. 

The fact was, Carlos was not only interested in science. As the calendar turned over to February, he started to wonder what it would be like to spend Valentine’s Day out with someone who loved him. Then he experienced Valentine’s Day in Night Vale and was extremely grateful to have been safe at home (and that he'd had a voice on the radio to assure him of Cecil's safety).

Everything finally came to a head when Carlos investigated the belligerent city underneath the Desert Flower Bowling Alley. The technologically sophisticated city turned out to be tiny, so Carlos made the mistake of dismissing their weapons as harmless. The next thing he knew, a dozen tiny missiles buried themselves deep in his leg and exploded. Collapsing in agony, Carlos landed on one of the miniature spires. He was suddenly reminded of _King Kong_ and a dozen other monster movies; in them the giant creature always dies. Carlos was going to die.

Carlos was going to die a coward. Sure, he could climb down to a tiny army advancing very slowly towards Night Vale. But he had been too afraid to ever hold Cecil’s hand. Carlos wished he had held Cecil’s hand. He wished he had kissed Cecil. He wished he had just allowed himself to be with Cecil whether or not anyone thought that made him an abomination. Even if they did think that, Night Vale had an amazingly high tolerance for abominations.

There was movement above him. Arms lifted Carlos off of the street just before a new set of missiles exploded where he’d been. He heard a stream of Russian words he didn’t understand, but from the tone they were probably profanity. Carlos blinked the tears out of his eyes and focused on the bowling alley above him. The Apache man hefted him higher and Carlos managed to find a handhold on the pin retrieval area. He scrambled up the sloping metal until other hands grabbed him and pulled him up to safety. More explosions and more Russian swearing echoed up the metal walls.

Carlos lay still for a few minutes catching his breath. At some point Teddy Williams bound up his injuries and gave him a tylenol. At some point the Apache was pulled from the pin retrieval area, bleeding profusely. A name caught Carlos’ attention.

“He’s alive, Cecil! Carlos is okay!”

It was one of the radio station interns, speaking into a cell phone. Carlos’ heart leapt. Cecil was on the other end of that phone call. Carlos got to his feet and limped over to the intern, who was now slowly pronouncing something in Russian. The boy moved to disconnect the call.

“Can I talk to him?” Carlos asked.

The intern looked up, startled. “Um, actually Cecil just went back on air. He’s been broadcasting through this whole… sorry, I need to check on the Apache tracker right now.”

Carlos nodded and let the intern hurry away. He stumbled outside to his truck and turned on the radio.

_“Never before in my career as a broadcaster have I gone through such a roller coaster of emotion and fear…”_

Carlos let Cecil’s voice wash over him. For once it wasn’t enough. Sitting in a booth getting updates from interns clearly wasn’t enough for Cecil either. Without allowing himself to hesitate, Carlos pulled out his phone and typed in a text message.  
 _I need to see you. I’ll meet you in the parking lot next to your studio._

There were ten minutes left in the broadcast, but Carlos wasn’t surprised when Cecil came running out during the Weather. His eyes took in Carlos hungrily. He looked as though he wanted to grab Carlos just to make sure he was real. But he refrained, treating this as a purely work-related encounter, just as Carlos would have wanted yesterday. Just as Carlos couldn’t bear today.

“What is it?” Cecil asked, “What danger are we in, what mystery needs to be explored?”

And for the first time Carlos truly felt that there was no danger in this, no mystery. He shook his head. 

“I just wanted to see you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Cecil's lines are taken directly from the episode.


End file.
